My Ex-husband Threw A $10,000 Card At Me While Leaving Me For A Younger Woman. Seven Years Later, I Finally Checked The Balance. Why Was There $2 Million In The Account?
“But you don’t know that the pain of being abandoned without knowing why, the pain of living with resentment and hatred for seven years, is as cruel as death.”
“If you had told me even just one word, I would have been willing to walk through that hell with you.” “No matter how ugly, how bad you smelled, how emaciated you were, you were still my husband. The man I loved most.”
But now it was all too late. My apologies, my love—he would never be able to hear them.
I dried my tears with a paper napkin, trying to calm myself. There was still something I didn’t understand, something that had tormented me for years, making me feel inferior and humiliated.
It was that woman—the young, beautiful, and elegant woman waiting for Daniel in the car that day. “Who was she?”
I asked in a choked voice. “Ethan, the girl who was in the car the day of the divorce… was she really his new girlfriend? Did she know about his illness?”
At the mention of her, Ethan let out a laugh, a laugh so bitter it was extreme. He shook his head.
“New girlfriend? What the hell? She was a low-level model, a senior in the drama department that Daniel hired.”
My eyes widened. “Hired?”
“Yes, hired,” Ethan emphasized.
“He paid her $500 for a day’s work. Daniel said he needed someone to play the part of the mistress and stage a final breakup scene. He chose her because she had a sophisticated, haughty air—the type of woman you were always jealous of. He wanted you to believe he had changed because he was crazy about a younger, more beautiful, and richer girl than you so you would leave without looking back.”
$500. The price of the performance that broke my heart and changed my life completely.
Just $500. Suddenly I started to laugh, a laugh that turned into tears.
I had been jealous. I had suffered.
I had compared myself to a non-existent mistress, felt insecure about being old and ugly, inferior to her in every way. And it was all a paid performance.
“That day,” Ethan continued in a solemn voice, “after you left, Daniel sat in the car watching your back in the rearview mirror. The actress tried to take his arm to comfort him following the script. He slapped her hand away, shouting, ‘Get out!’ Then he buried his head in the steering wheel and started coughing violently. He coughed up blood, staining a white handkerchief red.”
“He told me, ‘Ethan, I’m such a bastard. I’ve hurt Laura. Seeing her cry tears me apart inside. I just want to get out of the car, hug her, and tell her I’m sorry, that I don’t want to divorce anymore. Let’s go home, honey.’ But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.”
I listened as if someone were strangling my heart. I imagine Daniel in that luxury car appearing like an unfaithful man on the outside, but inside with a body ravaged by disease and a heart bleeding for me.
He wore that thick black trench coat not to look elegant, but to hide the tremors of pain, to conceal his emaciated body. He smoked non-stop, not out of addiction, but perhaps so the bitter taste of smoke would mask the metallic taste of blood in his throat.
“He acted too well, didn’t he?” Ethan looked at me, his eyes full of pain.
“He fooled you. He fooled everyone. Everyone insulted him, called him a social climber, a user, and he took it all. He said he’d rather carry a bad reputation forever than see you suffer. He used his honor as a man to buy your freedom. You hated him for seven years, but he loved you until his last breath.”
I stood there paralyzed, feeling like the most foolish person in the world. I saw what he wanted me to see.
I believed what he wanted me to believe, never looking beyond into his eyes to see the immense pain they held. A $500 performance cost seven years of my youth and his entire life.
If only I had been more insistent that day. If I hadn’t turned away immediately out of pride.
If I had been perceptive enough to notice the strangeness of his actions. But life has no “if onlys.”
Everything was written according to the tragic script Daniel had created. And I was the naive protagonist who played her part perfectly until the end, knowing nothing.
Ethan stubbed out his third cigarette in the already full ashtray. The smoke swirled and dissipated like Daniel’s short life.
I remained silent, but a storm was raging inside me. The question about the $2 million was still buzzing in my head.
It was a figure too large, almost illogical for a growing company that still needed working capital like Daniel’s at the time. Ethan read the doubt in my eyes.
He smiled bitterly, a pained, crooked smile. “You’re wondering where the money came from, aren’t you, Laura? Do you know what vultures do when a lion is wounded on the savannah?”
I shook my head, a lump in my throat preventing me from speaking. Ethan continued, his voice turning gravelly like the grinding of stones.
“They swoop in to devour it. As soon as Daniel knew he didn’t have much time left, his first decision wasn’t to check into a hospital, but to sell the company. It was his baby, the one he had built from scratch—his sweat and tears, his entire youth.”
Ethan recounted how Daniel needed cash urgently. And most importantly, it had to be clean money, legally transferred so I could use it without any legal trouble in the future.
The rumor that Daniel wanted to sell spread, and investors descended like hungry beasts. They didn’t care about the company’s real value, only that Daniel needed the money now.
The competitors Daniel had once defeated, the ones who smiled and shook his hand at parties, now came back to squeeze him dry. “He accepted everything,” Ethan said, rage glinting in his eyes as he recalled the scene.
“The company was really worth almost $4 million, but they lowballed him down to two and a half. Daniel didn’t haggle over a single word. He had only one condition: immediate cash payment into the fiduciary account. He signed the contract to sell his creation with a hand that trembled so much he could barely hold the pen, having to cover his mouth with a handkerchief from time to time to cough.”
I listened as if a thousand needles were piercing my heart. I remembered reading in the business section back then that the company had changed hands.
I even laughed with disdain, thinking that greedy Daniel had sold it to go enjoy life with his mistress. I had no idea that behind that trembling signature was a silent sacrifice.
He sold his pride, his career, the honor of a businessman to secure the financial future of the woman he was about to abandon. Ethan looked at me, his eyes boring into my soul.
“He used half a million to pay the employees’ salaries, settle debts, and give his parents something for their old age. The remaining 2 million, he put it all on that card for you. He said that in this life he couldn’t protect you anymore, so he would let the money do it in his place. Even though he knew money can’t buy happiness, at least it would mean you wouldn’t have to bow your head to anyone because of poverty.”
